Many who use the 16th Street Mall complain about its lack of certain retailers or the perceived overabundance restaurants and souvenir shops. But building and store owners, along with Denver business leaders, say more anchor retailers may be coming to the mall soon.

Bars and restaurants have, as one downtown booster put it, “activated” the space and made it more of an evening and weekend draw.

“We’ve got momentum and we’re moving in the right direction,” said Mark Sidell, president of Gart Properties, which owns and manages the mall’s Denver Pavilions retail and entertainment complex.

Long gone are the days — as recently as the 1980s — when department stores such as May D&F, Joslins, Fashion Bar, JC Penney, The Denver Dry and Neusteter’s all were located on the mall.

Department stores are unlikely to return, as suburbanites here and nationwide continue to show a preference for shopping at suburban locations, which usually have plenty of free parking, compared with downtown, experts said. But city leaders said they are concentrating on bringing other types of retail tenants that would drive more retail growth, like Target.

The opening of the mall in 1982 was followed by the three-story Tabor Center on 16th, between Larimer and Arapahoe streets, in 1984. Built by the top retail developer of the day, The Rouse Company, the stunning exposed steel girder and glass Tabor Center grand opening drew thousands of people to downtown Denver.

For years it was the retail epicenter of the mall with a three-story Brooks Brothers and a 16-operation food court, said Tim Gonerka, the Center’s first general manager of the Shops at Tabor Center. But it could not sustain its run of pulling in 14 to 15 million visitors per year because of the lack of residents downtown, the Cherry Creek mall opening in 1989 and other factors.

“Cherry Creek really was the key there,” said Gonerka, who is now the retail specialist for the City of Aurora. “The mall didn’t get stronger as far as becoming a shopping destination. There wasn’t enough (downtown) housing to carry that momentum of the first eight years.”

Current manager, Calahan Capital Partners, has reconfigured the Tabor Center with successful ground-level restaurants like the Cheesecake Factory and the Tilted Kilt, and landed the Colorado Athletic Club and Bridgepoint University on the third floor — but it’s never matched its retail prowess of the late 1980s.

The Pavilions — home to stores, restaurants, Lucky Strikes Lanes and a theater complex — landed the most anticipated apparel retailer in years when H&M opened its 22,000-square-foot flagship store — its first of several in Colorado — in the former Niketown space on 16th and Glenarm streets on Nov. 10, 2011.

H&M liked the 16th St. Mall site because of the “foot traffic, the retail mix, including restaurants, which makes the 16th Street Mall a destination, proximity to offices .... the central location downtown and the proximity to public transportation,” Christie said.

Tami Door, president and CEO of the Downtown Denver Partnership Inc., said it’s unreasonable to expect the mall to have wall-to-wall retail along its entire length. “There’s probably no place in the country where you have retail for a mile and half stretch.”

But she agreed that some anchors, such as a general merchandise store like Target, would help drive a greater mix.

The long effort to land a full-service grocery store downtown came to fruition when King Soopers announced last year it would open a full-service store on the ground floor of an apartment development on 20th and Chestnut streets. It’s tentatively scheduled to open in 2015.

Door noted new office developments on 16th at Market and at Wewatta streets will help drive foot traffic, boosting retail.

“You are having people coming and going out of the space. So whether or not it’s a bank or a restaurant or a bar, those are all really key parts of the retail mix,” she said. “In fact, especially for a more 24/7 city, restaurants and bars are actually going to provide livelihood and activation later into the evening hours, so it’s a good combination.”

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock said the city has been negotiating with Target for years to come downtown. But he said the big-box retailer doesn’t want to locate on a one-way street crossing the mall.

Hancock said the City Council extended the area’s taxing finance district to 2017 to help pay for new pavers and other improvements, which could further help the efforts to land anchor retailers.

Sidell said many retailers drool at the prospect of having 12.3 million mall pedestrians (as the Downtown Denver Business Improvement District estimated in 2012) walking by their store in a year, many of those being tourists and convention visitors.

Finding the right mix

“You need to have that mixture of retail, from entertainment to services,” Sidell said. “You just can’t have four banks in a row or four souvenir shops in a row.”

He admitted the Pavilions has had some trouble filling some large spaces on the third floor, and the former Virgin Megastore space lacks a permanent tenant. But he pointed to popular Denver Mexican restaurant Lime, formerly on Larimer Square, opening soon on the third floor. Coyote Ugly Saloon just renewed its lease for 10 years, he said, and H&M is looking to expand to the vacant third-floor space above its store. The United Artists theater on the third floor draws 750,000 visitors per year.

Door said — and several commercial real estate brokers confirmed — there are almost no retail vacancies on the ground-floor level facing the mall. The brokers estimated the vacancy rate at 2 to 3 percent.

Marc Naiman, whose family has owned the University Building at 910 16th Street for decades, is making capital improvements and plans to redo the ground-floor retail space where McDonald’s was for many years. A Modmarket restaurant will take over that space.

“For a number of years, the mall was a detriment to the city, not an asset,” said Naiman, of Robert L. Naiman Co. LLC. “But we’ve seen some tremendous changes. The mall is a vibrant amenity if it’s managed properly.”

Retailers are flocking back now as more residents live downtown and the space is more lively at night and weekends, Naiman said.

“Retailers are back making deals,” said Sidell, who noted the Pavilions’ sales have gone from $350 per square foot per year to $500 in the five years since Gart bought the center. “There will be more complementary retail coming. I don’t think we’re that far away.”